“African should have expanded market” Prof. Sachs

Report: Daniel Nana Aforo

The special adviser to United Nations Secretary General, under Millennium Development Goals MDG`s and the Director of Earth Institute of Columbia, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, has urged African leaders and governments to have stronger corporation and voice on the world diplomatic stage.

He said African need to be able to have expanded market within Africa like Europe did within Europe after the world war two and with this a stronger Union Government will help.

He said each country should certainly take chance to speed economic development. “All these will depend, if strong leadership of African Union Presidents is clear with realistic vision”.

He said there are a lot of governments and cited Ghana, Tanzania, and others who are ready for big economic take off and the need to raise some private and public to help such initiative.

Prof Sachs said this when he was interviewed by this reporter, at the just ended Ninth Ordinary Session of the African Union Summit, in Accra.

He said Africa should have a strong African Union that would help the continent to achieve the peace, have strong good voice internationally which would be favorable by the rest of the world. “We are hoping for Africa economic development and believe the economic development will be more stability, peace on the continent and good partnership internationally”.

When asked about his view on aid to African which has increased corruption on the continent, he said  if is well directed to practical thing that the people need such as infrastructure, providing medicine to fight malaria, helping farmers with fertilizers, expanding irrigation,etc  that would be important.

He continued that if the aid simply dumped on government’s budget and loose track, that would be a disaster. “When is well directed and practical knows what is for it plays an important role”.

The UN special adviser said he believes by 2025, the world would see an extreme poverty in Africa and by the year 2015 the continent could still achieve the MDG`s untime .He was quick to add that it requires a real breakthrough, very strong focus on economic development, strong focus on public investment that would need private and public capital.